For a retail price of $230, the 9950 is an interesting choice from AMD. This has driven the price of the 9850 Black Edition down to the $200 level in 1000 unit quantities. The 9950 performs higher than the 9850 across the board as to be expected from a CPU that doesn't have any architectural differences than the higher clock speed over the older CPU.For those wanting performance, but at an affordable cost the 9950 does well for the target area its aimed at. It plays games, runs Photoshop and works with all media without a problem. Not the fastest CPU in the world, but neither is it a lag dog.